Broadband forum: Century Link is horrible

I had service from Century Link for roughly a year. During that time I never once got the speed they claimed. I was paying for 3mb/s and most of the time it stayed at 1. I have seen it go as low as 300kbps however.

In late December early January I decided I had had enough and would not like to renew service. I called them and notified their customer service representative that I would like to discontinue service. The representative I spoke to said that would be fine and that service would not continue. As soon as my payment was received they reconnected service and now are saying I am on the hook for several months of service I had explicitly asked to be disconnected from. They claim that there is no record of the call even though I can show very clearly from my phone records that I spoke to them twice in the two days prior to payment being sent. When I asked to see their records of my calls the second level manager I spoke to said he could not authorize that and that it could take a week for them to get that information to me. Like he couldn't just do a print screen and e-mail it. He also said that even if I had asked for service to be disconnected it would have been reconnected automatically because I paid electronically through my bank rather than paying over the phone. That also makes a whole lot of sense.

When I asked to ensure that it is noted on my account that I, especially now, do not want it continued again he stated that he can do that but how I pay will determine if it is continued again. I asked how I could avoid this and he said he could not help but that I should contact their financial department and they could set the account to never reconnect again. I called them at the number he gave and they had no idea what he was talking about. The girl said just to wait until the end of the month and then the account will automatically be canceled. I'm sure this is the point where they turn it over to collections. So basically the answer is unless you are delinquent enough to be turned over to a collections agency we reserve the right to just keep reconnecting your service and charging you for it. That also makes a lot of sense.

Century Link are the worst internet provider I have ever dealt with. I hate that companies do this kind of stuff. They know that it's a large enough sum of money that it's a pain to pay but not enough to make it worth going to court over and just completely take advantage of people. I will be posting this story on every consumer board I can find. Hopefully other people will not fall prey to this company the way I have. If you live in Central Virginia I would go with anyone else besides Century Link they will not deliver the service that they claim and they will lie and rip you off. Also, at $65/month or whatever it is now it's not even competitive with the other providers in the area.

Anyway, I did post it on broadbandreports.com as well. I have just never had as negative an experience as this with any internet provider. Nothing like having a manager, thanks Mr. Woods, basically call you a liar on the phone. I'm just trying to make sure that anywhere that someone goes to look for reviews or information on these things they see this so that someone else can avoid such a bad experience. I'm considering purchasing a domain and building a site dedicated to this. As you can tell I'm mildly annoyed.

Amen! I hear ya. I was with Century Fink for 4 months last fall and turned into a babbling idiot trying to carry on an intelligent discussion with their phone people.

The sad thing is that I left and went to a wireless company named BroadLink. After 4 months with them I am begging Century Link to take me back The sadder thing is that CL is so incompetent that it cannot even schedule and keep hook up appointments.

The saddest thing? I live in the country and these are my only 2 options.

All I can do is submit reports with the BBB and hope that other companies move into this area.

I'm going to complain to the State Corporation Commission. A CenturyLink Tech who came out to the house told me that they were "aware" of the problem. Very poor DSL performance from Century Link seems to be widespread in rural Central Virginia. They simply are not making any effective effort to improve the performance for home subscribers. Try filling out an employment application online...... best of luck to the rest of you. I'm switching to something else as soon as possible.

Hi RevGalen123 - "slower download speeds than upload speeds" - thats not good! Sounds like there is a line issue or filter problem. Lets get it fixed! My name is Rich and I am part of the Centurylink Help Team and with a little bit of information sent to us directly at TalkToUs@Centurylink.com or submited on our secure form on our Facebook page under "support" http://on.fb.me/pDFnvq. We can investigate your service or billing concerns and help get you taken care of. Please send your billing account number, phone number, billing address, & an alternate contact number.

Looking forward to serving you!

RichCenturylink Help TeamYou can also find us on Twitter @CenturyLinkHelp

You could seek support, get jerked around for a couple months while they pretend to attend to your issue and continue charging you a higher than market value rate or you could just cut your losses and go with a better provider in your area.

More details, here you are:1. On monday, March 17th, I called to set up an installment of an account. I was promised to get it set up by Wednesday. This didn't happen because they made a mistake and took my wrong mailing address so the modem ended up in Glenwood Springs instead of Snowmass Village. The price of the service they promised me was $25.00 for Internet a month and a $30.00 refund promotion that I qualified for as a new customer. Step 2. I called again to ask where my modem was on Wednesday, March 17th. They told me they had a wrong address so they are sending me the modem again this time in Snowmass. I received it on Friday, 19th, and when I wento to set it up, I noticed that it came with a wrong power cord which I was unable to insert into the modem. The promised price was $14.95 a month for Internet + $ 5.00 lease on the modem + $33.00 for shipping and handling.Step 3. I found a power cord from a friend of mine that was working with the modem. I plugged it in and realized that the DSL was still not activated in my house. I missed 3 conference calls this week on gotomeetings.com because of this. I scheduled an appointment with a technician to come and fix the DSL and missed a day of work because I had to personally be at the house to meet him. Finally, after he came and fixed it and I called him again for the second issue 2 days later he resolved the problem. His name is Zack Collinge and he is a nice guy.Step 5. I finally received another shipment with the correct power cord and got everything installed and going. This was on Friday, March 29th. Two weeks later than the promised date. Step 5. I called the loyalty department asking for a discount. I spoke with a representative named Marya and she gave me a discount of 10.98 a month for a total of 12 months. After I tried to set up an account online the system rejected me and I called customer service. They told me I have to pay $66.65 or the first month and then $14,95 a month for the services. They also told me I would get a $50.00 discount which I didn't receive yet. The last representative from the loyalty dept. told me that I will have to pay $66.65, might not get a discount and my monthly payments will be $23,95 (tax included). I went through hell and finally paid the 1st month but I am still very confused. I spend 15 hours on the phone with Century linkMissed 2 days of workMissed 3 conference callsDidn't receive a credit or discountAlmost got a nervous breakdown dealing with people who gave me different information over the phone.The bottom line is that I will never recommend your services to anyone because of this!

terrible service, the connection is less than 10% of the speed promised, the connection (century link side) drops outs every 5 to 10 minutes. Oh, and for century link to fix THEIR problems they will send out a tech at your expense (nonrefundable) to fix it. but from past experience their techs won't be able to do anything through sheer incompetence. their customer service is also completely useless and full of incompetence. You'll get transferred from department to department each department claims they can't help you and send you back to the department you previously talked to that couldn't help either. I fully believe this is by design to get you to stop calling them. it's also a scam for them to charge you for their service provider issues that they can't seem to fix even when they come out to fix it. DO NOT USE CENTURY LINK.

Ihave had nothing but headaches from centurylink in both products and service.I am beginning to believe that most of the centuryfink employees are complicit in the perpetration of this fraud they are visiting on most of their customers;especially the poor!Just got off the phone after my first call was disconnected because my internet connection dropped away and then got to talk to Peter who assures me there is no problem with my connection and then pretty much hangs up on me!Sure would like to join a class action lawsuit against centuryfink!!!

Unluckily where I live I have no other choice but centurylink.what a horrible corrupt company!!They are nothing but a den of thieves! You are so right ; it is not enough money for one person to sue but maybe if there was a firem that would start a class action suit for all of us it would make the big bunch of liars sit up and take notice.I VOTE FOR A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST THE SLUMLORD OF THE INTERNET AND PHONE ; CENTURYLINK!!!

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